Evan Dorkin
Looking Forward, Looking Back | Creators weigh in on 2012 and 2013 (Part 1)
Five Weapons
It’s become an annual tradition here during our birthday bash: No matter how much stuff we line up, people we interview, etc., there are still tons of folks we like to hear from and include in our giant New Year’s/anniversary/birthday activities. So, as we’ve done in past years, we asked a cross-section of comics folks what they liked in 2012 and what they’re excited about for 2013. We received so many this year that we’ve broken it down into two posts; watch for another one Tuesday.
But for now, check out all the great stuff people shared with us, including hints at new projects and even some outright announcements. Our thanks to everyone this year who responded. Also, thanks to Tim O’Shea, Michael May and Chris Arrant, who helped collect responses.
JIMMIE ROBINSON (Bomb Queen, Five Weapons)
What was your favorite comic of 2012?
Image’s Saga, Fatale, Hawkeye‘s reinvention is fresh and exciting, Peter Panzerfaust, Enormous by Tim Daniel. It’s hard to pin down just one because there is SO much good work coming out nowadays — from many publishers across the board.
Food or Comics? | Avocados or Avengers
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a splurge item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.
Avengers #1
Chris Arrant
If I had $15, I’d start out with Legend of Luther Strode #1 (Image, $3.50). I was behind the times on the first series, but now I will raise my fist to the air and decree “NO MORE!” (to the stunned silence of my local comic shop owner). Justin Jordan really brought a different take on this story, but for me the sizzle on this is Tradd Moore’s art. It reminds me of Sam Keith’s middle-period during his Marvel Comics Presents Wolverine run, and that’s nothing but a good thing. After that I’d get Stumptown #4 (Oni Press, $3.99). Some might compare Dex’s journey to that of Jessica Jones in Marvel’s Alias, but it’s anything but. Greg Rucka really knows how to make a story feel more than just mere fiction. My third pick this week would be Invincible #98 (Image, $2.99), seeing Mark Grayson get his powers back – just in time to be stomped into the ground, from the looks of it. Reading this series since the first issue, I’m noticing the colorist change more and more here; John Rauch definitely is a step removed from FCO Plascencia, and I’m still getting used to it. Kirkman and Ottley are delivering here so well that Domino’s should be jealous. (ba-dum CHING!) Last up in my Wednesday haul would be Avengers #1 (Marvel, $3.99). I’ve noticed in doing Food or Comics for as long as I have how I’ll routinely follow writers but when they manage to get an artist I particularly like I’ll fall over myself trying to get to it. Case in point, this book, with Jonathan Hickman joining forces with Jerome Opeña to kick off a new era for Marvel’s flagship book. I’m all for “Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers,” but I’m even more excited to see Opeña’s take on this.
Second Beasts of Burden miniseries in the works
The dogs and cat of Burden Hill return to duty next year in a new miniseries by creators Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson. Unofficially announced during a panel at last week’s New York Comic Con, Dorkin gave a few details on it on his blog.
“Although we didn’t make a formal announcement, during the Dark Horse Comics horror panel we mentioned that Jill Thompson and I are working on a second Beasts of Burden mini-series,” Dorkin said on his blog. “It’ll be four issues, two of which I’ve written (one of which I co-wrote with Sarah). When we’re finally done with it all the second series will cap a second hardcover collection, along with the Hellboy crossover and the Neighborhood Watch stories from Dark Horse Presents. As far as a schedule for the new series, I guess ‘sometime in 2013′ is about all I can cough up. Anyway, at least it’s underway, finally, and I’m glad we can start talking about it. Although I guess that’s all there is to say right now.”
The Eisner-winning comic from Dark Horse stars a group of dogs and cats that investigates supernatural events in their town. Beasts of Burden began as a recurring feature in the Dark Horse Book of… anthologies before graduating into its own miniseries. All of those stories can be found in Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites collection. More recently they appeared in Dark Horse Presents, with those stories being collected into the one-shot Neighborhood Watch.
Previews: What Looks Good for August
It’s time once again for our monthly trip through Previews looking for cool, new comics.
Wait a minute … “monthly”?
It’s true that we haven’t taken a What Looks Good tour in a few months, but the feature is back with an all-new approach that we hope will be more varied and useful than the old format. Instead of Michael and Graeme just commenting on everything that catches our attention in the catalog, we’ve invited Chrises Mautner and Arrant to join us in each picking the five new comics we’re most looking forward to. What we’ll end up with is a Top 20 (or so; there may be some overlap) of the best new comics coming out each month.
As usual, please feel free to play along in the comments. Tell us what we missed that you’re looking forward to or – if you’re a comics creator – mention your own stuff.
Love and Rockets: New Stories, Number 5
Chris Mautner
1) Love and Rockets New Stories #5 by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics) — How do you possibly top the triumphant storytelling feat that was “The Love Bunglers”? I dunno, but Jaime Hernandez is certainly going to give it the old college try, this time shifting the focus onto the vivacious “Frogmouth” character. Gilbert, meanwhile, brings back some of his classic Palomar characters, so yeah, this is pretty much a “must own” for me.
2) Skippy Vol. 1: Complete Dailies 1925-1927 by Percy Crosby (IDW) — Percy Crosby’s Skippy might well be the great forgotten comic strip of the 20th century. Extremely popular in its day, and a huge influence on such luminaries as Charles Schulz, the strip has largely been forgotten and the name conjures up little more than images of peanut butter. IDW’s effort to reacquaint folks with this strip might change that — the few snippets I’ve read suggest this is real lost gem.
3) The Voyeurs by Gabrielle Bell (Uncivilized Books) — Tom Kaczynski’s small-press publishing company drops its first major, “big book” release with this memoir from the always-excellent Gabrielle Bell. Collecting work from her series Lucky (and, I think, some of her recent minis), the book chronicles a turbulent five year period as she travels around the world. Should be great.
4) Godzilla: The Half Century War by James Stokoe (IDW) — I usually stay as far away from licensed books as possible, but there is one simple reason I’m including this comic in my top five: James Stokoe. Stokoe’s Orc Stain has quickly become one of my favorite serialized comics, and his obsession with detailing every inch of the page combined with his ability to incorporate significant manga storytelling tropes in his work convince me he can do a solid job chronicling the adventures of the big green lizard that spits radioactive fire.
5) Barbara by Osamu Tezuka (Digital Manga) — Speaking of manga, here’s one of the more noteworthy Kickstarter projects of recent years: Digital Manga’s attempt to bring the master’s saga of a famous author and the homeless, beautiful woman he takes in and assumes to be his literal muse. This is well regarded in many Tezuka fan circles as one of the cartoonist’s better adult stories, and I’m glad to see Digital willing to take a chance on bringing more Tezuka to the West. I’ll definitely be buying this. I should also note that Vertical will also be offering some Tezuka this month, namely a new edition of Adolph (originally published by Viz in the ’90s), here titled Message to Adolph but well worth checking out regardless of the title.
Watch the French trailer for Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites
If for some reason you’ve not already read Beasts of Burden, the Eisner-winning Dark Horse series by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson about a group of dogs and cats that investigates supernatural events, maybe this will pique your interest: Paris publisher Delcourt has released a nice trailer for the French edition of Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites, in which the Wise Dog Society must contend with demonic cannibal frogs, tortured spirits, a secret rat society and a resurrection in the Burden Hill cemetery.
“I’m usually not a big fan of the animated comic book trailer thing, but I have to admit I was kind of knocked out to see this, and not just because it’s something I worked on,” Dorkin writes. “It looks pretty swell, someone really spent time on this and Jill’s art looks great, of course. It’s like an animatic for an animated film, with music and titles, it’s very professional and it honestly freaked me out when I first saw it because I figured it was going to be a french person thumbing through a printed copy of the book. Which it isn’t.”
Comics A.M. | Archie feud goes into mediation; C2E2 attendance ‘way up’
Archie Comics
Legal | The New York Times ventures deep into the legal battle between Archie Comics Co-CEOs Nancy Silberkleit and Jonathan Goldwater, noting the two sides have gone into court-approved mediation. “Competing lawsuits filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan and State Supreme Court in Westchester County lay out a litany of bitter allegations. He punctured her car tires, destroyed her Web site and claimed that she sexually harassed employees. She ordered him to fire several longtime employees because they were too old, too fat or too buxom, and let her dog, Willow, roam the offices and defecate in the art department.” [The New York Times]
Conventions | Although no figures have been released for last weekend’s Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, organizer Lance Fensterman said attendance was “way up,” noting that, “the size of the show floor doubled and the aisles were much more full than last year. That tells you how much attendance jumped to keep pace with the floor growth.” [Publishers Weekly]
Food or Comics? | Dark Horse preserves
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a splurge item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.
West Coast Avengers: Lost in Space-Time
Graeme McMillan
It’s not even a fifth week, but I find myself curiously distanced from this week’s releases for some reason. Outside of some books I’ve been reading for awhile, there’s little to really catch my eye, so if I had $15, I’d likely find myself buying Dark Horse Presents #10 (Dark Horse, $7.99) and Memorial #4 (IDW, $3.99), and being quite happy with those two books.
If I had $30, I might go back to Justice League with #7 (DC, $3.99); I wasn’t entirely convinced by the opening arc, but I found myself enjoying the Pandora back-up in #6 enough that I found myself more curious about sticking around than I would’ve expected. I’d also grab Legion of Super-Heroes #7 (DC, $2.99), another book I’ve found myself liking more than I initially thought, as well as Thunderbolts #171 (Marvel, $2.99) for one of the few, final times before it becomes a part of the Avengers family.
Splurging, oddly, is a much easier choice for me than what I’d get in single issues: Avengers: West Coast Avengers – Lost In Space-Time (Marvel, $34.99) collects some of the first issues of West Coast Avengers that I read way back when, launching a love affair with Steve Englehart’s writing that continues to this day. Those original issues are long since lost to history (Somewhat fittingly, considering the time travel subject matter), so this will be a welcome nostalgia trip for me.
Evan Dorkin asks, ‘What are the box office bombs of comics?’
Acclaim's sequel to Kevin Costner's "Waterworld"
In the wake of the lackluster performance of Disney’s John Carter movie at the box office earlier this month, cartoonist Evan Dorkin uses that sometimes-comic character to look back on his home medium and ask what would be the comics equivalent. Phrasing it as only he can, Dorkin asks in a blog post, “What are the ‘Holy shit, we spent a lot of money and published this comic book and no one bit’ titles out there?”
While Dorkin notes that comics makes only a small percentage of what the movie industry makes every year, he does stress that most comics have trouble breaking even. His question is which ones had an exorbitant budget that the publisher didn’t recoup in the slightest.
In the long and engaging post, Dorkin describes superhero comics akin to B-movies, saying, “There’s a built-in audience and the publishers generally know what they’re gonna get when they put something out. And by and large, they don’t fork over a ton of dough to the creators or spend a wad on pre-production figuring out what they’re doing.”
Another point I’d add to Dorkin’s question that makes finding an answer even more difficult is how secretive comic publishers are about their budgets and sales figures compared to to movie studios. While publishers are quick to shoot off press releases about comics “selling out,” no major publishing house releases figures the way movie box office figures are put on display every week. Because the general public and even the journalists covering the industry don’t have accurate figures about the money spent and the money earned on a comic, only the publishers know–and they’re not telling. But that’s an entirely separate discussion.
In the comments section, some of Dorkin’s readers chime in with potential examples like the 90s Valiant/Image crossover Deathmate, DC’s War Of The Gods crossover and certain publishers as a whole like Crossgen and Tekno. What do you think?
Evan Dorkin brings House of Fun to Dark Horse Presents
Dark Horse will serialize new work by Evan Dorkin in three issues of its Dark Horse Presents anthology beginning with March’s Issue 10.
Called House of Fun, the comic will serve as a venue for Dorkin to revisit some of his older concepts, including Murder Family, The Eltingville Comic Book, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Role-Playing Club, and, yes, Milk and Cheese. Each eight-page installment will be colored by his wife and frequent collaborator Sarah Dyer.
“The idea was to bring back as many of my old characters and concepts from Milk and Cheese and Dork as possible, grouping it all under the new House of Fun name,” Dorkin explained on the publisher’s website. “I decided not to use Dork as a catchall title for these comics. I got sick of the name a long time ago and this relaunch felt a good opportunity to finally retire it. [...] This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time now. The last issue of Dork came out in 2006 and it’s been even longer since I worked on an Eltingville or Murder Family strip. I’m excited to be working on my own stuff again, I’m having a lot of fun making these comics, and I hope folks will have fun reading them. If not they can go suck an egg.”
Dark Horse Presents #10 goes on sale March 21.
Food or Comics? | A pre-Thanksgiving four-color feast
Wolverine and the X-Men
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a “Splurge” item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.
Chris Arrant
If I had $15, I’d get one from almost every box–Image’s Invincible #85 ($2.99), DC’s DMZ #71 ($2.99), Marvel’s Wolverine and The X-Men #2 ($3.99) and independent title RASL #12 ($3.50). Not much to say about any of these I haven’t already said, except anytime Cory Walker draws a book I’d pay twice cover price.
If I had $30, I’d sneak out of Thanksgiving preparations to first get a book I was surprised I liked as much as I did, despite the last issue’s ending: Shade #2 (DC, $2.99). One thing I wasn’t amped to see was Deathstroke, but given James Robinson and Cully Hammer’s track record I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. Next up would be the epic (in my mind, at least) team-up of Warren Ellis and Michael Lark on Secret Avengers #19 (Marvel, $3.99). Seeing Ellis boil down the concept into “Run the mission. Don’t get seen. Save the world.” Hits me right between the eyes, and this new issue’s preview has be salivating over it. Last up, I’d pay the giant size price tag for Fantastic Four #600 (Marvel, $7.99) although my patience has worn a little thin with ending the series then bringing it back for #600.
Milk and Cheese deluxe hardcover loaded with extras
Milk and Cheese
The release of Dark Horse’s latest round of solicitations last week revealed that Evan Dorkin’s humor comic Milk and Cheese will get the deluxe hardcover treatment, collecting “every single stupid Milk and Cheese comic ever made from 1989 to 2010, along with a sh*t-ton of supplemental awesomeness.”
On his LiveJournal, Dorkin revealed details on what the “supplemental awesomeness” will entail:
- The book will feature over 80 pages of comics that have not been collected before.
- There will be a 24-pg color section featuring all the color M&C strips, a cover gallery, pin-ups, merchandise art, trading cards, etc.
- There will also be a 24-pg B&W supplemental section featuring pin-ups, t-shirt designs, and other art, etc.
- The book will include the rare 1997 M&C Special Edition 16-pg mini-comic featuring the expanded “Darth Vader Overdrive” strip and extras.
- The only M&C-related comic that will not be in the collection is the M&C/Pirate Corp$! strip from Munden’s Bar Annual #2.
- Some very swell folks gave us some very nice back cover quotes.
- The book should be hefty enough to hurt anyone hit over the head with it.
- The book should be pretty freaking awesome.
The hardcover is due Dec. 21, just in time for Christmas.
Forget the movie — Dorkin & Thompson working on new Beasts of Burden comics
Yesterday’s announcement of a potential Beasts of Burden movie put a gleam into the eye of more than a few comic fans, but if that wasn’t enough, we have more good news: Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson are already working on more Beasts of Burden comics.
Prompted by the movie announcement, Dorkin took to his blog to give new details about new Beasts of Burden stories in his work. After last year’s crossover with Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, Dorkin & Thompson are reuniting for three standalone stories in upcoming issues of Dark Horse Presents, and they’re currently working out a schedule to do another limited series. Huzzah!
Dorkin & Thompson are no stranger to Hollywood-types taking notice of their work; Dorkin’s worked extensively for Cartoon Network, and Thompson’s Scary Godmother series was made into a string of animated films several years back.
HeroesCon Recap: Photo Essay
Rather than try to write a summary of my HeroesCon 2011 experience, I have opted this year to share as many photos as possible. My camera was out-of-commission yesterday so all photos were taken during the second day of the show (Saturday).
Jeff Parker and friends
Beasts of Burden, Macabre, Steranko coming to Dark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents #3
Dark Horse has posted several updates on their blog about upcoming content for the relaunched Dark Horse Presents anthology. As you can see on the cover above, the third issue will include a 13-page preview of Red Tide, “Jim Steranko’s crime-noir masterpiece.”
Issues #4, #6 and #8, meanwhile, will include Beasts of Burden stories by writer Evan Dorkin and artist Jill Thompson. “These new stories take place shortly after the events of the Hellboy crossover from last year, are self-contained, and can be easily followed by folks who haven’t read the previous comics,” Dorkin said. “I hope our regular readers will enjoy these stories—Jill’s painted artwork is as amazing as always, and there are character and background details dropped throughout the episodes that add to the overall story line we’ve been building.”
And finally, issue #4 will also include a new Criminal Macabre story by writer Steve Niles, artist Chris Mitten and colorist Michelle Madsen. “I can’t give away too much, but there are some major shocks coming for Cal fans,” Niles said. “Everything about Cal and his life is about to be whipped into a Hellish frenzy that would have the Devil himself on his heels. Plus it’s gonna be funny and I can’t say enough about Chris and Michelle’s work together. It’s perfect.”
Eric Powell enlists Evan Dorkin for an issue of The Goon
Crossovers are no uncommon thing in comics — but some are more strange than others. If you thought the recent Hellboy/Beasts of Burden one-shot was something, wait until you see what Evan Dorkin has planned next.
The Goon creator Eric Powell tweeted Wednesday that Dorkin will be coming in to work on his series. Described as one of Powell’s “funny book heroes,” Dorkin is stepping in to write The Goon #35, and Powell has even shared a peek at the cover. Dorkin, Powell and Carnies — It’ll be real interesting to see what Dorkin brings to the already off-kilter title.
My own personal opinion here, but I think Evan is very underused in comics — he did one of the best Deadpool stories ever in two issues of Agent X. If you’ve caught up on Dorkin’s major works, this little-known gem is definitely worth a look in your local store’s back issue bin!